Hello and welcome to The Marketing Blog. My name is Michael Fleischner and this blog has been developed to share my more than 14 years of Marketing experience with anyone interested in learning more about marketing or Internet marketing. The Marketing Blog markets marketing simple and covers all aspects of marketing with a particular focus on internet marketing.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Many web site owners spend a lot of time building the next great application, web portal, or informational web site only to discover that creating a great site is only the first step. A fantastic web site that doesn’t have any visitors holds no value. So how do you generate traffic to your web site? There are a variety of ways to generate traffic but some of the best are free.

In this week’s video, I’ll show you how to generate free traffic to your web site using traffic exchanges. Top exchanges like Traffic Swarm and EasyHits4U are free to join and can easily generate thousands of targeted visitors to your website.
Traffic exchanges are exactly what the name infers. You are essentially exchanging traffic. Here’s how they work. You sign up for an account and “visit” other web sites. Each time you view a web site or squeeze page, you earn credits. These credits can be used for traffic. After you earn a certain number of credits, your web pages are shown throughout the traffic exchange network. Each time these pages are viewed by other members, you are charged a certain number of credits.

It may sound a bit confusing but actually it’s quite simple. You browse web pages and other members browse yours. The most productive way to utilize traffic exchanges is with the help of high converting squeeze pages. If all you want to do is drive traffic, then you can easily set your web sites home page as your main display URL. If on the other hand you are looking to build a list, develop powerful squeeze pages with an offer that encourages individuals to click through or sign up.

Over time you can generate a significant number of views for your web site or web page. Set your browsing page as your start page each time you open your browser. This takes less than a few seconds to set up and can generate additional credits for you. Most exchanges, including Traffic Swarm provide benefits for specific actions like loading your start page.

Premium versions are also available on traffic exchanges, allowing you to earn credits even faster. Once you’ve begun using traffic exchanges, and see the type of traffic they are delivering, consider premium options. The quality of traffic you receive can vary greatly from exchange to exchange so make sure you’re tracking properly and focus not just on traffic but on conversions are well.

There are tons of additional tools to help generate traffic to your web site at little or no cost. I’ll cover additional tactics in the future but suggest that you start using traffic exchanges today to get visitors to your website.